Warbird Information Exchange

As one of the very fortunate, remaining, few typed pilots on the Mars (and no, I'm not that old! ) I just wanted to say a few things about the Old Ladies...The Wright 3350-24WA (all even number dash series of Wright engines being built for the US Navy aircraft) powerplants are not "derated" as described in the previous thread. They were built to produce 2500 HP from the 18 cylinder, two stage supercharger (the high boost stage locked out on the Mars). The 4 blade Curtis Wright (nepotism here don't ya think?) all steel propellors are controlled via the Curtis Electric propellor control system and a real gem once you understand the principals (took me weeks to get it right, and then I began teaching the system) Caroline Mars (one of the originals also purchased by the Forest Industries Flying Tankers consortium in 1959) was a P&W 4360 "corn cob" powered behemoth but converted to the 3350-24W and was lost in a freak tornado in Victoria BC in the early 60's prior to conversion as a water bomber.

On a water pickup, the 85,416 lb empty weight aircraft, carrying a crew of 4, fuel, foam, gel and approximately 90 gallons of oil behind each powerplant will weigh around 125, 000 lbs and scoop an additional 37,000 lbs of water for an all up gross of 162,000 lbs That's equivalent to a fully loaded 757 passenger aircraft! As fuel loads are burned and foam and gel is consumed, the aircraft can eventually pick up to 7200 gallons weighing 60,000 lbs for the true "big gulp"

The pick-up is conducted "On Step" at about 70 KIAS, as the touchdown occurs around 85 KIAS and the aircraft rapidly slows to 70 KIAS with the two water scoop probes selected down. As the giant slows, we are thrown forward against our shouldeer harness, and the Flight Engineer advances throttles to 54 in. Hg to maintain 70KIAS during the 28 seconds it takes to scoop 60,000 lbs of water.

Hope this is of interest to those of you reading. Cheers!

Apologies for the poor camera work, not my forte. Sounds pretty cool, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWjr19Br5QI

Yer right, awesome radial noise. It sounded like two passes though with only one aircraft in the video. Were both Mars there?

As one of the very fortunate, remaining, few typed pilots on the Mars (and no, I'm not that old! ) I just wanted to say a few things about the Old Ladies...The Wright 3350-24WA (all even number dash series of Wright engines being built for the US Navy aircraft) powerplants are not "derated" as described in the previous thread. They were built to produce 2500 HP from the 18 cylinder, two stage supercharger (the high boost stage locked out on the Mars). The 4 blade Curtis Wright (nepotism here don't ya think?) all steel propellors are controlled via the Curtis Electric propellor control system and a real gem once you understand the principals (took me weeks to get it right, and then I began teaching the system) Caroline Mars (one of the originals also purchased by the Forest Industries Flying Tankers consortium in 1959) was a P&W 4360 "corn cob" powered behemoth but converted to the 3350-24W and was lost in a freak tornado in Victoria BC in the early 60's prior to conversion as a water bomber.

On a water pickup, the 85,416 lb empty weight aircraft, carrying a crew of 4, fuel, foam, gel and approximately 90 gallons of oil behind each powerplant will weigh around 125, 000 lbs and scoop an additional 37,000 lbs of water for an all up gross of 162,000 lbs That's equivalent to a fully loaded 757 passenger aircraft! As fuel loads are burned and foam and gel is consumed, the aircraft can eventually pick up to 7200 gallons weighing 60,000 lbs for the true "big gulp"

The pick-up is conducted "On Step" at about 70 KIAS, as the touchdown occurs around 85 KIAS and the aircraft rapidly slows to 70 KIAS with the two water scoop probes selected down. As the giant slows, we are thrown forward against our shouldeer harness, and the Flight Engineer advances throttles to 54 in. Hg to maintain 70KIAS during the 28 seconds it takes to scoop 60,000 lbs of water.

Hope this is of interest to those of you reading. Cheers!

I presume the Mars has returned home now?